A virtual celebration of our poster collection

This weekend (Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 April), London Transport Museum will recreate its ‘Poster Power’ Depot Open Weekend online, launching a brand-new hub for family activities, videos, audio recordings, blogs, quizzes and online galleries, all inspired by the Museum’s collection of transport posters – one of the most important collections of 20th century graphic poster art in the world.

The Museum’s Depot Open Weekends are a rare opportunity for the public to explore a treasure trove of over 320,000 artefacts from London’s transport history, including historic Tube trains and buses, maps, station signs, and posters.

While April’s Open Weekend will no longer be going ahead, the ‘Digital Depot Open Weekend’ will allow the public to still explore gems from its collection from home. In keeping with the ‘Poster Power’ theme planned for April’s event, activities and resources available from the Museum’s new ‘Poster Power’ hub will include behind the scenes video tours of the Depot’s art and poster stores, a recorded talk on the history of poster design from the Museum’s Head Curator, creative family activities, and new online poster galleries where virtual visitors can explore the intricate details of historic artworks up close.

The Museum’s online shop will be offering a special 30% discount on all pre-printed posters until 3 May, so art and design fans can bring a piece of transport history into their home. There will also be the chance to win gift bundles from the shop’s brand new ‘sporting range’, inspired by beautiful vintage sports posters from the Museum’s collection.

The ‘Poster Power’ hub will go live from Saturday 25 April, kicking-off a week-long celebration of the Museum’s poster collection on its social media channels - which will include a call out to the public to post their own recreations using household items.

This wealth of poster inspired activity pays homage to the rich design history of London’s transport, showcasing its unrivalled reputation for commissioning powerful and persuasive publicity artworks, memorable commercial advertisements and entertaining customer information posters throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Museum’s collection contains over 5000 unique posters, and the Depot in Acton is home to the majority of these, which include works by famous graphic designers and artists such as Abram Games, Dora M Batty, Edward McKnight Kauffer, Man Ray and Paul Nash.